


Tender is Tonight

by Smith_is_not_your_lawyer



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, happened or could have happened, i don't know it just came to my mind, no there is no comfort only hurt, some supplements to the main story I think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 23:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smith_is_not_your_lawyer/pseuds/Smith_is_not_your_lawyer
Summary: What happened on the eve of the cage fight, from Danny's perspective.





	Tender is Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. This is a pointless fictional supplement to what happened in episode 8, Season 2 of the show. To be precise, It happened on the night before Colleen brought Danny to a cage.  
> 

1.

Seeing that Davos's figure is getting smaller and smaller, Danny finally turns his head back. They are temporarily out of the danger, but the panic in his mind haven't been extinguished yet. He doesn't fear Davos, though no one can understand what kind of terrifying power is lying on Davos' fist better than he does. Certainly he knows the power he once possessed, but he had defeated Davos at the tournament even before he earned the mantle of the iron fist. He is the genuine champion of K'un Lun, the man who defeated Shou-Lao and punched into the fiery heart of that dragon with bare hands. It is another thing that he is afraid of.

He is afraid of losing the young woman sitting beside him.

In the beginning, he was not worried that his girl cannot beat Chen wu, so he felt free to escort Mrs Yang. But when he rolled down the window and saw Davos walking down the stairs, he really had his heart in his mouth. He's not even afraid of his kneecap being smashed into broken pieces by a thing of iron once again, but he is terribly afraid of what Davos could have done to Colleen if he arrived one single minute later.

During his whole life, there are not many things that can scare him, although this young man did make a lot of stupid mistakes due to his innocence and precipitance, pushing himself into traps one after another. However, even the three hours of being tied up by _the Hand_ without knowing what he's going to face is less disconcerting for him, compared with the past thirty seconds.

"Just drop us at the second crossing, thanks." He speaks to the driver. Then, he clears his throat and turns to Mrs Yang. "Mrs Yang, I'm sorry for what happened these days. We will do what we can to make this right, as soon as possible."

Mrs Yang doesn't answer immediately. She sits there, lips pressed tightly, as if in deep thought. There is a one-minute silence inside this car, he can hear Colleen breathing.

"Mr Rand, are you sure you can make the right move when you face him next time?" The exquisite make-up of Mrs Yang doesn't disguise the tiredness inside her, losing her husband as well as a series of frightful events followed is a great blow, even for a strong woman who leads the most powerful gang in Chinatown.

Mrs Yang's eyes are examining him,  as if there is a sharp knife in front of him. He can see a vague reflection of himself in her eyes, as if he sees his image on the surface of that knife.

"He will." Colleen answers abruptly, in a very low voice. The conversation ends there, with the car engine sound droning.

There is no much light inside the car, except for the not-bright streetlight that comes through the window. Danny is stealthily staring at Colleen's outline by that dim light. It's a bit cold tonight, he can see the white steam she breaths out when she gasps lightly.

She keeps silent. Her hands are trembling slightly. Back there just now, facing Davos popped up on the stairs must frightened her as well.

Colleen is not tall, and she looks even thinner when sitting in this narrow space. A sentiment of tender mixing protectiveness sprawls in his mind like a piece of seaweed. Danny has this desire to hold her tightly in his embrace, but eventually, he fails to make the move.

 

 

2.

Colleen is quieter than usual tonight. Living together with her for months, Danny knows that there must be something on her mind. It's not particularly about Davos or Chinatown, he knows it's something else, but he can't tell precisely what it is.

He turns the key to open the door, and turns on the lamps. Then something occurs to him, he turns around, ready to talk when Colleen steps inside behind him. She doesn't take notice of his sudden movement and knocks into him as a result of inertia. Danny instinctively buckles her shoulder, holding her in his arms.

She mutters an oath unwittingly. "Sorry, it's dark." -- her first words since they got off the car.

Danny isn't sure if it is in consequence of having been beaten up brutally by his rigorous sensei with a club for weeks, he didn't realize that she's merely a girl several years younger than him until now, and he's able to hug her using only one arm very easily.

Colleen sniffs, trying to leave his embrace. She just takes a step back, then Danny remembers what he was trying to say.

"Your fingers, Colleen." He pulls up her right hand, "dislocated again, right?"

She has no choice but to turn back with a helpless smile without looking at his eyes. "Yeah, so annoying. It forms a habit."

Danny gently strokes around her fingers to confirm the specific condition. It's similar to what happened last time, she punched too hard so the joint got dislocated automatically.

He can feel that her hands are trembling slightly. "OK, get ready, it might hurt." 

She's staring at the floor while he is observing her secretly. She doesn't do the count-in-Madarin thing as before any longer, she already knows his little trick. She doesn't make a sound either, when the replacement is done, but can't help frowning for an instant.

"Thanks, I do need to learn this someday, to save trouble in the future." She smiles, pulling back her hand quickly, and takes off her coat. After that, She leans against the pillar, arms crossed loosely over her chest.

Danny just stands there, looking at her. He remembers the last time he relocate her finger.

They were not familiar with each other at that time, but she was his closest friend in New York, and still is, (closest friend, and lover, he thinks.) He was standing at exactly the same position, here, holding her hand in his. Her skin was smooth, and her fingers were slender and beautiful, although they looked small, compared to his. He was also looking at her face secretly, then it turned to them staring at each other for seconds, making him even forget to let go of her hand.

He doesn't know if he had already had a crush on her, but it never fade over time.

"It's not a big deal. Besides, you can always ask me for help." Danny smiles. He gets a glass of water from the kitchen and pass it to Colleen. 

She takes a sip, blink quietly. "Go get a shower, Danny."

Danny nods, and takes the glass from her simultaneously.

While drinking water, he's also looking at Colleen's face softly. He was raised up in a monastery, where a strict boundary between male and female exists, but he still had chances to meet some girls from time to time. Almost every woman in K'un Lun has a similar eye and hair color, like Colleen's, but none of them can fascinate him so much like she does.

She was born with bushy eyebrows, which are blessed with exquisite shapes without the need of additional drawing, like a pair of crescent moons. Her eyes are as inky as obsidian while as bright as evening stars.

He notices that there is some ash on her nose, maybe she got them during the fight.

Colleen is looking at the floor when waiting for Danny to move his feet. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw his Adam's apple move a bit, then he suddenly raises his arm to her face.

‘Don't move.' Before she could make a react, Danny scrapes her nose with his finger, in a very gentle way.

Then he sweeps over the outline of her left eyebrow to wipe away some remaining dust with an imperceptible smile upon his lips. His beautiful blue eyes is gazing at where he's softly and intently touching. When his fingers slowly slides to the side of her face, their eyes contact with each other, nothing but silent breathing can be heard.

Danny doesn't move away his hand right away, instead, he tucks a loose wisp of her hair behind her ears, and leans forward a second later.

Maybe their heartbeats are able to be heard now.

When their noses are about to encounter, Colleen slightly tilts her head and glances away deliberately.

She pushes him away lightly, sighs. "Go, Danny. It's late, you need rest."

She grabs the glass, drinking off the rest of the water when walking away, and put the glass back on the shelf. Her hand seemed still trembling when holding the glass.

Danny nods, with more or less a sense of loss, he walks to the bathroom.

 

 

3.

Colleen told him to go to bed early since there will be new training content tomorrow, though in fact both of them are tired after what happened tonight. Now, her 'additional work' for Bayard is finally finished, she shuts off the laptop.

Danny keeps his eyes closed, he purposely leans to one side of the bed, pretending that this is an unintentional movement without letting Colleen realize that he's awake, partly because he doesn't want her to be worried for his lack of rest.It is true that the heart of the dragon is not within him for now, so there is no endless power from Shou-Lao to support his massive physical output around the clock, but he remains a robust young man who has been trained for years.

On the other hand, he knows that Colleen won't go to bed until he's asleep.

He understands it. He went a bit too far to ask her to train him, she might still feel angry about that. Besides, in the past few months, ever since what happened at Midland Circle, he has been out almost every night. Sometimes she had fallen asleep before he came home, sometimes he didn't choose to stay at home even when no crime is found.

He didn't spend much time with her, he thinks, he can't blame her for changing her attitude toward their intimate moment.

Colleen takes off her clothes and tucks the covers around her. But several minutes passed, she still hasn't lain down.

Danny is breathing calmly, eyes closed, he senses that someone is looking at him. Colleen is gazing at his face. He doesn't need a reason, though he is not Matt Murdock, he is not able to actually 'see' everything around him without using his eyes, he just knows.

"Danny?" Colleen whispers his name.

"Danny, are you asleep?"

Obviously she's not trying to ask if he is asleep, and surely it would be ridiculous if he answers with "Yes darling I am." She just want to confirm that.

He's confident that she won't find out. There is a skill in K'un Lun that resembles the Feign Death of Ninjas, martial artists who master which kind of skill can manage to deceive scores of people. Although he didn't take much effort to learn it, he got more than enough to trick his girlfriend.

Besides, Colleen was too young when she left Japan, there is no way for her to know this technique.

While he is being distracted by his weeny complacency, Colleen bends forward and lays a kiss upon his forehead.

Her lips are as soft as he can remember from the first night she asked him to stay here. Only for an instant, he thinks his heart skip a beat.

For weeks she has never done anything intimate toward him actively ever since he asked her to train him. Even when he tried to make physical contact with her once in a while, she either instinctively dodged, or ended it rapidly without looking into his eyes.

She hasn't pull away yet. Her hair skate lightly over his beard, a little itchy, he feels. He likes fondling her hair, which is soft as silk.

 

He recalls the night they watched _Once Upon a Time in America_ together. Colleen likes Robert De Niro. When Noddles was reciting t _he Song of Solomon_ to Debora, Colleen looked at the screen, telling him "You know what, I was really obsessed with him when I was a teenager."

Danny grew up at a Monastery, but he does not count himself as a devout Buddhist. Like his parents, he does not have a strong religious faith. He paged through _the Song of Solomon_ afterwards, he remembers that there is such a line --

> _Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful!_
> 
> _Your eyes are doves behind your veil._
> 
> _Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes o Gilead._

When he read that, the scene of Colleen sitting beside him rose before his eyes. It doesn't match at all, as a matter of fact. She was drinking a bottle of beer, focusing on a gangster film, with her hair loose over her shoulders, but she always looks so beautiful and perfect to him. For a split second he considered to quote that line at their wedding.

 

Wedding. He recalled that last year, when they were tracing _the Hand_ , in Cambodian. The tracing is full of peril, but on a 'clue-vacuum' day, they attended the wedding of a hospitable couple, at the local village.

There were so many guests invited that tables were set on the grassland outdoors. Owing to the atmosphere, perhaps, Danny abruptly ask her, "What kind of wedding would you like? Traditional one or ......?"

The moment he said it out he thought he screw it up. This was completely not a good time to propose, plus, there were a lot of unsolved problems waiting for them. And, who else could he invite as guests? Both Colleen and him are orphans, (well, Colleen is, in a way). He could invite Ward and Joy, and J-Money, yes. Claire's name must be on the list. Maybe he can invite Claire's boyfriend, too -- the dude who had a lot of bullet holes on his shirt, it could be possible for them to become good friends in the future.

OK, Danny Rand, end of random thought.

Danny added waveringly, "I mean ...... if you were to marry someone, one day?"

He was not sure that he would be the person she's going to marry (though he was definitely willing to be). The choice is up to Colleen herself, and she might not be one of those women who enjoy marriage at all.

Colleen narrowed her eyes, at that time, she was a bit tipsy. Colleen had always liked drinking, and the home-made rice wine shared by our amicable hosts might be a little strong.

Danny thought that three seconds of waiting for her response are as lengthy as three whole centuries.

Then Colleen leaned on his shoulder. He let out a sigh of relief, thinking "Fine, she's drunk. She didn't hear it."

He felt a bit cold when the night wind blew on his face, so he stretched out to take her into his arms, with a little disappointment in his heart at the same time.

"Danny, I don't need a wedding. I'm not that kind of person."

Hearing her voice, Danny got nervous immediately, and soon upset, more or less.

Then she finished the sentence, "I just want to stay with you, always."

 

Colleen is not a fan of physical touch, and maybe she will never be. Only when she's delighted to can Danny have the chance to hug her, kiss her hair, rub her nose, or smell her neck and her collarbone.

She rarely uses perfume, but her body has a kind of exotic, fragrant smell, like Japanese sake mixed with milk. It's light, too, thus it can be smelled out only when you are at a very intimate distance with her (Danny feels glad that he is evidently the only person who have this chance at present, and he hopes he will always be).

Now her smell in lingering around Danny's nose. He senses that she's moving down slowly. Her movement of pressing a kiss on his lips is slightly heavier than the former one, but she still behaves very carefully, not wanting to wake him up.

Danny, on the other hand, is awfully worried about his acting, which becomes hard for him to keep up, owing to his pounding heart.

He desires to press down her neck, hold her tightly in his embrace, and deepen the unfinished kiss earlier tonight.

But he doesn't make a move, that's against the rule of a gentleman. He knows that Colleen would never be doing this if she knew he's awake now. Soon, she withdraws. She lay down with her back toward him, turning off the light.

Danny is listening to the quite breath of the person he loves the most in the world, with his eyes open in the darkness.

He does not understand. He does not understand everything between them these days.

"We need to talk. I need to talk this out, tomorrow." He makes a decision.

The bright moon is showering its silvery light on the floor, and the color of the night is tender and sorrowful, just as his blue eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again.  
> Bye.(......)  
> 


End file.
